Got a box of fireworks the other day from costco called californication box. I thought it was kind weird so just for the heck of it I started digging and found this, maybe not useful but interesting.
THE FIREWORKS KING
June 27, 2018
Roughly 70 percent of all Chinese fireworks entering the United States come here under the control of a Chinese businessman who has used his influence to raise prices and block competitors, leaving many U.S. executives fearful of losing access to their most important Fourth of July inventories.
Ding Yan Zhong — known to industry insiders as “Mr. Ding” — has managed the flow of fireworks for a decade through the two companies he founded, Shanghai Huayang and Firstrans International.
He has broadened his empire by consolidating power in China, expanding his reach into California and becoming the most important player in fireworks logistics on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.
Now, Ding’s control of the fireworks delivery chain is nearly complete, according to two dozen shipping and fireworks executives, more than 40,000 fireworks shipping records, numerous court documents and other sources.
From the southeastern Chinese city of Liuyang, where the majority of U.S.-bound fireworks are made, producers often load their products onto Huayang trucks. After they are stored in a Huayang warehouse, Huayang runs access to the barges they float down on the Yangtze River toward Shanghai. Once there, Huayang arranges for their shipment across the ocean.
In the United States, these containers, often stuffed with 30,000 pounds of pyrotechnics, are frequently received by Firstrans, which was founded by Ding seven years ago, completing an 11,000-mile journey connected to Ding every step of the way.
Ding’s volume and fees rose just as the spectacular fireworks he delivers do, and they are passed along to U.S. consumers, paid by everyone from hobbyists buying sparkling comets at roadside stands to municipal governments buying professional-scale shells for their annual Fourth of July celebrations, according to fireworks industry officials in China and the United States.
“Everything going through Shanghai goes through Mr. Ding and Huayang,” said Julie Heckman, executive director of the American Pyrotechnics Association, a U.S. trade group for fireworks companies. “We have no choice. You want to get your products, that’s what you do. . . . The industry is at the mercy of that, and nobody wants to rock the boat.”
But Steve Houser, secretary of another trade group, the National Fireworks Association, said U.S. companies don’t have to rely on Huayang exclusively because several smaller firms also were able to ship fireworks to the United States from China.
Still, he added, “Mr. Ding, as everybody calls him, is better to have as a friend than an enemy, I’ll tell you that.”
So far this year, companies founded by Ding have arranged the transportation of 241 million pounds of fireworks, loaded onto 7,400 containers from China to the United States, according to Panjiva Inc., a firm that tracks companies involved in global trade.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/business/the-largest-supplier-of-american-fireworks-is-from-china/
Makes me wonder if maybe there might be something other than just fireworks in those barges.